Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: Electrostatic solitary structures are generated by injection of a suprathermal electron beam parallel to the magnetic field in a laboratory plasma. Electric microprobes with tips smaller than the Debye length (λDe) enabled the measurement of positive potential pulses with half-widths 4 to 25λDe and velocities 1 to 3 times the background electron thermal speed. Nonlinear wave packets of similar velocities and scales are also observed, indicating that the two descend from the same mode which is consistent with the electrostatic whistler mode and result from an instability likely to be driven by field-aligned currents.
Source: Physical Review Letters
Authors: Bertrand Lefebvre, Li-Jen Chen, Walter Gekelman, Paul Kintner, Jolene Pickett, Patrick Pribyl, Stephen Vincena, Franklin Chiang, Jack Judy
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2046480941